In honor of tonight's ho-hum Slam Dunk Contest, we thought it would be fitting to hand out this week's MCAS to a former Slam Dunk champion.......and since Harold Miner has already received the Milk Carton All-Star of the Week, the award got passed to the next best thing: Isaiah "J.R." Rider.
J.R. Rider was the 5th pick of the 1993 NBA Draft, out of UNLV(back when it mattered to come out of UNLV), by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Rider had a couple promising seasons with the T'Wolves, proving himself as a promising scorer averaging more than 16 points per game in his first three seasons. For all of his scoring acumen, however, Rider was also a Grade A knucklehead. He routinely got into spats with Minnesota's front office, was convicted of fifth-degree assault for kicking a female sports bar manager, and was arrested for marijuana possession shortly before he was shipped to Portland in the summer of '96. During his Minnesota run, J.R. did manage one accomplishment: winning the 1994 Slam Dunk Contest(which, suspiciously enough, took place in Minneapolis).
It didn't take long for Rider to fit in perfectly with his "Jailblazer" brethren. He was convicted of marijuana possession in October of '96 and got hit with a 12-game suspension for spitting on a heckler. When Rider was on the court and not spitting or kicking fans, his numbers were solid, save for the '98-'99 season where his scoring average dipped to 13 ppg. That was his final year in Portland, as he was shipped to Atlanta along with Jim Jackson in exchange for sharp-shooter Steve Smith. Once in the A-T-L, all hell broke loose. The most glaring of Rider's many troubles during his one season with the Hawks came when he was fined $200,000 by the league for refusing to take a drug test amidst speculation that....wait for it....he may have smoked weed in an Orlando hotel room. Rider averaged 19.3 points per game while with Atlanta, but Hawks management grew tired of J.R.'s nonsense and granted him his release. The next season, he landed in Los Angeles and won a ring with the Lakers, despite not being added to the playoff roster. After just one season there, Rider signed with Denver, where he lasted all of 10 games with the Nuggets. It was the last time he would step foot on an NBA hardwood.
With his NBA career over, Rider's life went, well, pretty much like his life during his NBA career went: With alot of police blotter. He was sentenced to seven months in prison after violating a court order from a previous arrest that demanded he stay out of Marin City, California, after he was arrested for kidnapping a woman in January 2006. Two years later, he was arrested for unlawful firearm possession and grand theft following an altercation with a taxi driver. A couple months after that, Rider was arrested AGAIN for numerous charges including possession of a controlled narcotic substance, evading police, giving police false information and driving on a suspended license.
Oh, but wait, there's more. A couple weeks after his narcotic possession arrest, Rider was cuffed again on a auto theft charge. After a brief(one game) comeback with the North Texas Fresh of the ABA in October of 2009, Rider was arrested in April of last year for assaulting his fiance. A couple days after that, he got another arrest for kidnapping his one month old son.
So, let's give a round of applause for the inspiration behind the "Grand Theft Auto" series and Ron Artest's role model......Isaiah "J.R." Rider, ladies and gentlemen......he was probably arrested twice in the time it took me to write this.
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